Through Time
by Kazet
Summary: Marauders discover a spell that can send them into the future, decide to try it to prank McGonagall & end up meeting Harry in his 7th year. Keara & James have a problem with swearing during chappy 4(& a few others). Sirius/OC, J/L
1. Prologue

A/N: Whelp, I added a prologue. Why? I dunno, just felt like it. I sorta rewrote the entire fic. Most of it anyway. I'm still not entirely pleased with it, but I'll keep working on it. Any ideas are welcome.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize from Harry Potter. I do own all the characters that you don't recognize though. But this applies for all the chapters, but I don't want to take the time to write it in every one.  
  
  
  
Prologue  
  
"It's starting to become the same pranks every day," Sirius grumbled to his best friend as they sat in his room munching on Cauldron Cakes and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. "We need to come up with something really good for when school starts again."  
  
"Know what you mean. There's only so much you can do to the same people day in and day out," James agreed flipping through a Quidditch magazine.  
  
"Maybe we could make a Polyjuice potion and be Snape and Malfoy for a while. It'd be fun getting them into trouble," Sirius grinned warming to his idea.  
  
"True, we could," James replied with a shrug. It was a good idea, but it just wasn't big enough.  
  
"But? I know one's coming," Sirius sighed. He had thought it was a great idea. He loved watching the two get into trouble for things they hadn't done.  
  
"I don't know. That's too easy. I mean we can still do that because yeah it'd be great playing havoc with them and screwing things up for them," he grinned and then sobered again. "It'd still be too easy, though."  
  
"Yeah, I see your point. That's something we could do without much problem. We need something that would give us more satisfaction than that. Something hard. Almost impossible."  
  
"Something dangerous."  
  
"Something risky."  
  
"Something that we'd get into serious trouble for if we got caught. Y'know, like becoming animagi."  
  
"But what?"  
  
"No idea."  
  
"Damn."  
  
"Maybe there's something in the library."  
  
"Only one way to find out! Last one there's a hooked nosed greasy haired git!"  
  
"You're on!" The two boys took off running towards the Potter's library pushing and shoving when they got to the door to get in first. In the end, they both toppled into the room at the same time grinning that they weren't the loser.  
  
"James? What was that noise? Are you and Sirius all right?" James' mother's voice carried down the hall  
  
"Yes, Mum! Everything's fine!"  
  
"Good. Don't forget that Lily and Remus will be here soon."  
  
"I won't Mum!" James called back and then looked at Sirius. "Oops I forgot about that. but that's great! They can help us look for the perfect prank," James enthused.  
  
"We'll need 'em. Your library is huge! It would probably take decades to go through every book."  
  
"That's why they have indexes, Siri."  
  
"Okay, then. Fine. It'd still take years though if you did it alone."  
  
James simply shrugged knowing that he was probably right.  
  
Eight hours later.  
  
"James we aren't going to find anything in here," Remus groaned. His vision was going slightly fuzzy from staring at the small printing of the books for the past few hours.  
  
"We'll find something. We've got to! I'm not going to quit now and have done all this for nothing," Sirius snapped, his patience frazzled from lack of success.  
  
"Just a little longer, Rem. Please?" James pleaded.  
  
"But James, this is pointless," he nearly whined.  
  
"Please Rem? Just a little longer."  
  
"Oh, alright," he sighed and turned back to the book he was searching through.  
  
"I've got it!" Three heads snapped up and looked hopefully at Lily.  
  
"You found something?" James inched closer to his girlfriend and looked over her shoulder. She moved the book out of his reach and closed it marking the page with her finger. "Nuh-uh. I found it. I get to tell about it," She grinned.  
  
"Then get on with it!" Sirius urged. He wasn't going to admit it, but he was bored and frustrated, and it was starting to become extremely obvious. He hadn't imagined that it would be so hard to find something and had been starting to think that looking in the library was a bad idea.  
  
"I'm getting. I'm getting. Sheesh. Impatient little man aren't we?" Lily earned herself a glare and an "I'm bigger than you!" or some such retort from Sirius' direction.  
  
"Lily, come on. You're dragging this out on purpose. Are you trying to kill us?" James moaned and made a grab for the book, but Lily was quicker and snatched it away again just in time. He decided to switch his method and wrapped his arms around her waist kissing her neck murmuring, "Lily dear. You shouldn't keep things from your boyfriend. It's not nice. We're supposed to tell each other everything."  
  
"Mmm. Stop that. It's not fair. Now, don't rush me."  
  
"Sadistic little wench," muttered Sirius.  
  
"Hmph! Maybe I won't tell you what I found then," she clutched the book to her chest tightly and pouted. "I thought this would be fun, too. Oh, well."  
  
"Please, Lily. Tell us what you found," Remus spoke up, asking politely hoping that it would work seeing that James and Sirius' tactics weren't working.  
  
"Alright, since you asked nicely. Well. It's gonna take some time to prepare for it. I'd say about a few months the first time any way. It wouldn't take as long after that. It's really complex and could go seriously wrong very easily if you've never done it before."  
  
"Sounds perfect," Sirius moved closer, his interest piqued.  
  
"It sorta acts as a time turner, but better. It allows us to go into another dimension of this world as well as another time."  
  
"Now the question is. Do we want to go to the past, the present or the future? We definitely want to go to another dimension," Remus mused.  
  
"I'd say the future. We could scare McGonagall half way into her grave. She'd remember us from when we were this age, but she'd presently know us as being older. It'd shock her to see us again like students," James commented and everyone agreed.  
  
"Let's say we visit the future nineteen years from now," Sirius added.  
  
"Why nineteen? Why not twenty?" Remus asked perplexed.  
  
"Because anyone would think to do twenty. Not many people would think of doing nineteen," Sirius grinned.  
  
"Uh, yeah. I don't see how that's important. Love the reasoning, Padfoot. You'd need a brain surgeon to actually make it sound intelligent. Let's just hope we don't get ourselves killed," Remus muttered.  
  
"We won't. We're too smart and too careful to let something like that happen. There is no room for mistakes and there won't be," James said confidently. "Besides, if we can pull off becoming animagi, then we should be able to do this, too."  
  
"Wait a second! James, are you trying to tell me that you three are animagi?" Lily stared wide eyed.  
  
"Uhhh. I well."  
  
"Why would I need to be an animagus? I'm a werewolf."  
  
"That makes sense," Lily turned to James and smacked him upside the head, hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to cause any real damage. "Why didn't you tell me you're an animagus?!!!! You do know that's illegal right?"  
  
"Errr. I." James' voice trailed off. He hadn't meant for her to find out that way. It just sort of slipped.  
  
"He was afraid that you'd try and stop us from doing it," Sirius supplied the answer for him and James blushed.  
  
"OF COURSE I WOULD HAVE! You could have gotten hurt."  
  
"That's why I didn't tell you."  
  
"Hmph. Why would you want to become animagi anyway?"  
  
"We wanted to keep Remus company during the full moon."  
  
"You still could have messed up and."  
  
"Everything went perfect. I was careful. I promise," he kissed her forehead and she took his words at face value. If anything had gone wrong she would have heard about that.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"What's what?"  
  
"Your animagus form."  
  
"I'm a stag. Siri's a dog." James snorted.  
  
"Hey! It's not funny. It looks like the Grim. It's huge!"  
  
"Point taken. And Peter's a rat."  
  
"Peter managed it?"  
  
"We helped him as much as we could."  
  
"Oh. So that's where your nicknames came from," the reason finally dawning on her why they always looked at each other nervously when she had asked them about it before.  
  
"Speaking of Peter. We probably shouldn't bring him," Sirius snorted.  
  
"We won't. He'd be too scared and would ruin it anyway. He's okay and all, but he wouldn't enjoy this. He's too paranoid," James laughed.  
  
"Well then, let's see what we're gonna need to pull this off. Shall we? The sooner we get started the sooner we can do it."  
  
Four months later.  
  
"All set," Lily grinned excitedly. "I just finished the last thing that needed to be done.  
  
"Really?" Sirius perked up and forgot about the potions essay that he had been busy trying to avoid working on.  
  
"Yup!"  
  
"Let's do it later tonight then after classes. We'll end up there sometime in the afternoon, so it won't matter if we wait until we won't get caught," James suggested.  
  
"Sounds good."  
  
"I'll let Remus know to meet us in the common room after his last class and we'll go from there. Good thing it's not the full moon." 


	2. Chapter 1

Through Time Chapter one  
  
"Nervous?" James Potter asked his girlfriend, Lily Evans, and his fellow Marauders. He received three identical nods in return. "Sure we wanna do this?" Almost everyone nodded.  
  
"Erm." Remus looked hesitant.  
  
"We've been preparing for this prank for months! We have to do this or everything will have been a waste of time. Do you remember how long it took us searching Prongs' library?! Don't tell me that you don't think it'd be great to see McGonagall's face when she sees us again as kids. Dumbledore will love this!" Sirius Black grinned at his friends knowing he was right. "Ready?"  
  
"Ready as we'll ever be," Remus Lupin laughed nervously.  
  
After checking to make sure no one was coming who could over hear them, the four commenced in reciting the complex spell that would send them into the future along with another dimension. They hadn't wanted to risk being expected by their older selves, had they happened to run into them. It would ruin their fun and destroy the element of surprise. James had thought ahead and had decided to bring the Marauder's Map and his invisibility cloak, knowing that they would need them both.  
  
~*~  
  
"You think it worked?" Lily whispered into the darkness. She had been the first to dare speak after they had completed the spell. She didn't feel any different. No tugs, no mutilation of a spell gone wrong, no whirling of a vortex. Just the same darkness and eerie silence that had prevailed before they had started.  
  
"I don't know. Lumos," James whispered and the tip of his wand lit up. "Well, the room still looks the same, so either it's still a secret or the spell didn't work. I've got an idea though. I brought the map with me, so we'll just see if there are any names we recognize and any we don't." James dug the map out of his pocket as the other three drew closer to him, each lighting their wands in order to be able to see the map more clearly. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," James murmured as he touched the tip of his wand to the blank parchment and watched as lines resembling spider webs fanned out across the parchment. James could have sworn that he had heard someone else whisper the same words he had just uttered in the hall just outside the door. No one else mentioned hearing anything unusual so James put the thought out of his mind and focused on the map.  
  
"Hey, I think it worked. There are a ton of names I don't recognize. McGonagall's still here though, along with Dumbledore, which is good. And there's one name on it that I couldn't have even thought to hope for. This prank just got a whole lot better. Severus Snape," Sirius grinned maliciously. None of them had expected to find Snape still at Hogwart's.  
  
"Snape, huh? Wonder what he's doing here."  
  
"Something down in the potions stockroom."  
  
"I hope he didn't forget about." James cut himself off. He was positive this time that he had heard voices coming from the direction of the hall again. "Shh. listen."  
  
"Uh. hey Harry?"  
  
"Yeah, Ron?" All four of them could hear the two muffled voices whispering in the hallway.  
  
"Why does the map have three dots on it all labeled Potter? I mean, you're the only student with the last name Potter. One of the dots is where you're standing and the other two are in there." James assumed the boy, who must be Ron, owning the voice was pointing at the door to the room they were hiding out in. When he looked his map, however he only saw two dots labeled Potter. One being him and the other had to be the Harry out in the hall. (A/N The map James had was the old one so it still showed Lily as Evans. The map Harry had had experienced Lily and James' wedding so it had given Lily the last name Potter.)  
  
"Sirius and Lupin are with them. Did either of them tell you that they were coming to visit? It's not your birthday or anything so why would they be here?"  
  
"No, neither mentioned anything. Odd. Usually Sirius tells me when he's coming. He better not be trying to spy on me. You know. Sometimes he takes this godfather thing too far. It's not as if Voldemort."  
  
"Stop saying his name already!"  
  
James sniggered. It really was childish to be afraid of saying a name, he thought. At least the boy who he assumed to be somehow related to him, a son maybe, wasn't afraid of a mere name. It was silly to be.  
  
Harry continued on as if Ron hadn't spoken. "It's not as if Voldemort is around anymore to come after me again. He can't come back this time. Sirius doesn't need to snoop. I normally tell him everything and what I don't tell, he usually seems to guess," Harry muttered crossly.  
  
James sniggered at Sirius. "Looks like you got yourself a teenage godson. He doesn't seem all too pleased with you either at the moment."  
  
"Yeah, well. It looks like you got yourself a kid. If I'm the godfather and his last name is Potter then he's gotta be yours, Prongs," Sirius sniggered right back at James.  
  
"At least he isn't complaining about me though," James looked smug.  
  
"Come on Har', let's go see what Sirius and Lupin are up to. Maybe Lupin wants to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts again."  
  
"He would have said something to me about that though. I would think."  
  
"Oooo. He's probably Lily's as well! That's probably why their map has three Potters. Lily's a Potter!" Sirius sniggered, effectively causing Harry and Ron's last two remarks to go unheard, and actually displayed his intelligence for once. "You two sure didn't seem to wait long after school to start reproducing. Harry's definitely one of the older students judging by his voice. And we only came forward nineteen years."  
  
"Wonder why they call Sirius by his first name and me by my last," Remus mused softly.  
  
"Wonder later! Run! Unless you wanna get caught!" Lily whispered rather frantically, but James caught her arm before she could get very far.  
  
"Don't you understand?" James asked as he noticed Lily's blank stare.  
  
"They have the Marauder's map as well apparently. They'll know exactly where we go. It will only make them more suspicious if we run. We can't hide from them, not if they have the map and know how to use it and obviously they do," Remus answered logically.  
  
"Well, seeing as how it's Prongs' son, he must have given the map to Harry. Way to go James. This prank is going to be over before it even began."  
  
"Hey! He's your godson. Maybe you gave him the map!" James shot back at Sirius. "Knowing you, you probably would! You'd want to see him making trouble!"  
  
"So would you!"  
  
"Not that it really matters who did or why. The point is that they have the map," Remus pointed out. "And besides if he takes after either of you he'd probably think this was brilliant, too."  
  
"This is gonna be weird," James mumbled to himself. No one disagreed with him. It truly would be weird to meet your own son or your best friend's son when he was roughly the same age as you were.  
  
The four watched as the door opened seemingly on its own and then close again.  
  
"Nice going Prongs!" Sirius hissed quietly, "you gave him your invisibility cloak as well."  
  
"How do we know it wasn't you?!"  
  
"Because the cloak is YOURS!"  
  
"Oh, yeah," James muttered sheepishly.  
  
"Sirius? Who're you talking." Harry murmured as he turned on the light. Harry stared awestruck at the four blinking teens in front of him attempting to adjust their eyes to the light. He paid particular attention to the redheaded girl with green eyes, his eyes, and the boy who could pass as his mirror image only he didn't have the scar on his forehead and he had hazel eyes instead. Maybe he was dreaming, but he doubted it. Harry flinched as he pinched his arm. "Nope, not dreaming," he murmured softly.  
  
Sirius smiled, "Uh. Hello. This is. well. weird. Can you take off the invisibility cloak? I prefer to see the person I'm talking to."  
  
"He's right Harry. Talking to someone you can't see is pretty weird. Remember Hogsmeade back in third year? I kept asking you if you were still there?" Ron whispered to Harry. Harry removed the cloak and continued to stare at what could have almost been his reflection. He hardly noticed that all four had gaped at Harry then the three at James and then back at Harry.  
  
"He could be your twin!" Remus exclaimed.  
  
"He's got Lily's eyes, though," Sirius added. "Told you that Lily was a Potter!"  
  
"You two look really different y'know?" Ron informed Black and Lupin, having completely ignored their conversation. "Did you two make a potion that makes you look younger? If you did it works great," Ron commented before turning to the other two and gaping as well. All six of them wore stunned expressions on their faces.  
  
"Ha. Harry. Are. You don't suppose.?" Ron stuttered as he stared at James.  
  
"Mum? Dad? But you're." Harry's voice trailed off as his vision went black. 


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
  
"Harry, Harry, come on, Harry, please wake up."  
  
Through the fog Harry could just make out Hermione and Ron's blurry faces hovering above him. Everything else in the room was too bright to look at being white and reflecting all the light. Harry closed his eyes again to block out the blinding light and felt someone slide his glasses onto his face.  
  
"Ron, what happened to him?" To Harry's muddled brain Hermione's voice sounded muffled and distant.  
  
"He. Uh. Passed out and hit his head on the statue that was standing next to the door."  
  
"You LET him fall?!" Hermione practically shrieked. "He could have DIED!"  
  
"I was too busy paying attention to something else to catch him in time," Ron said stiffly.  
  
"But, why did he pass out?"  
  
"I think it was from shock. Can't really say I blame him, though. It was kinda freaky, y'know?"  
  
"No, I don't know. I wasn't there in case you forgot that," Hermione snapped.  
  
"Oh right. Well. we, uh, saw Harry's parents, well we think it was them, with Sirius and Lupin," Ron glared at Hermione as she burst out laughing and received a glare from Madame Pomfrey. (A/N is it just me or does Poppy Pomfrey sound funny put together?)  
  
"I'm serious, Hermione," Ron crossed his arms over his chest.  
  
"Oh, come off it, Ron. We all know that they're."  
  
"Dead," Harry quietly finished for her having finally cleared his head. "I know, but the map even labeled 'em both Potter. It doesn't lie."  
  
"HARRY! Are you all right?!" The door to the hospital slammed open nearly ripped off of their hinges as a man ran in.  
  
"Mr. Black, if you cannot keep your voice down I will have to ask you to leave. My patient needs rest," Madame Pomfrey snapped at the man who had just run over to Harry's bedside. "Poor guy. He's paranoid about that boy. Can't say that I blame him, though. He's visited me more than any other student," she murmured softly to herself.  
  
"Harry, what happened? You weren't doing something dangerous were you?"  
  
"I decided to play with Fluffy. I didn't realize that our views on 'play' would be so different. She thought I meant viciously maul. You'd think I go looking for trouble with the way you act sometimes." Harry muttered sarcastically. "You were there, you know what happened." His head hurt and he wished that his godfather would take Pomfrey's advice and keep his voice down.  
  
"Madame Pomfrey sent me an owl an hour ago saying you were here unconscious. I came as fast as I could. I really have no idea why you think I was there when this happened. You weren't hallucinating were you? Now tell me the truth. Were you doing anything dangerous?" Sirius brushed the hair out of Harry's face. He worried about his godson. He just wanted to keep him safe. He was all he had left of his best friend.  
  
"Of course I wasn't doing anything dangerous!" Harry sounded rather irritated. After all it wasn't as if he went looking for trouble. Not really anyways. Only when he had to.  
  
"I guess that potion you used earlier wore off. Shame. You and Lupin looked a lot better. No offense," Ron added hastily. "Healthier. You still look too thin."  
  
"What are you talking about? What potion? And what about Remus? He's back at home. I didn't think that he needed to come as well. And I'd still like to know what happened to Harry, since I honestly wasn't there."  
  
"Okay, well, we were using the map earlier and it showed four dots in the room next to us: Lupin, Black, Potter, and Potter. Harry couldn't remember you saying that you'd visit so we decided to see what you and Lupin were up to. You both looked about our age actually. So did the other two with you. One was a red headed girl and the other could have passed for Harry's twin, except he had hazel eyes and was a little bit taller. Harry said something like 'Mum and Dad' and I think he was going to say that they were dead and that's when he passed out and hit his head. The five of us brought Harry here, but somewhere along the way we lost the four of you."  
  
Sirius groaned quietly, "Please tell me you're joking, Ron. That has got to be the worst lie I've ever heard."  
  
"No, I'm not joking. And I'm not lying. You mean it really wasn't you and Lupin?"  
  
"No, it wasn't."  
  
"Then how." Hermione looked confused and looked over at Ron who wore the same sort of expression as she.  
  
"I have no idea. I think Ron must have hit his head as well because it simply isn't possible. Either that or it's a sick joke," Sirius nearly growled out. "And I intend to find out who's behind it."  
  
~*~ Meanwhile.  
  
"He looked exactly like you, Prongs! Well, almost. He had Lily's eyes and height," Lupin declared in awe. "Apparently you and Lily tied the knot after all. Now isn't that heartening?" he grinned.  
  
James, however, wasn't sharing in the enthusiasm going on around him. Something about his son was bothering him. The way he had just stood there and just looked at him as if he had seen a ghost or was hallucinating. It was creepy. If he had assumed that Sirius and Remus had just taken a potion, then why hadn't Harry thought the same of him and Lily? And where had that scar come from? Something just wasn't right. "I think I'm gonna go wander around for a bit. I need some time to think by myself," James said quietly as he put on his invisibility cloak and handed Sirius the map. They'd need it more than he would since they didn't have any way to keep from being seen. He took the cloak off when no one was looking after he got into the library. Looking for books when you didn't know what you were looking for in the first place was hard enough. The cloak only made it all that much harder. Most likely people would just assume that he was Harry from the side. James wondered where the odd shaped scar on his son's forehead had come from and what house he was in while he wandered the isles.  
  
"Hey, you'll never guess who I just saw in the next isle." "Who?" "Harry Potter. The Harry Potter. Isn't that so cool? Maybe we could get his autograph." James listened to the excited voices on the other side of the bookcase. He assumed the person they saw was himself. Last he knew, his son was still in the Hospital Wing. Their voices sounded young. Probably first years, but why were they talking about Harry and why would they want his autograph? "You think he really has that scar?" "Dunno, Sarah said she accidentally bumped into him yesterday and that she saw it." "Think he'll let us see it?" "Sarah said he was really nice and polite, but I don't know if we should ask him. I mean You-Know-Who gave it to him when he was a baby right after he killed his parents so he might not wanna be reminded about it." James didn't bother listening to the rest of the conversation. He was hearing a strange ringing in his ears and was seeing red. Voldemort had tried to kill his son! A Baby! Well, that would explain the strange reaction Harry had to him. James assumed that Sirius had been the one to raise Harry. He knew he wouldn't have chosen anyone else. He wondered if Padfoot had done a good job of it. He guessed so since the girl had said he was nice and polite. He sniggered at the thought of Sirius playing the part of father and good roll model for little Harry. Sirius and good roll model usually didn't work in the same sentence unless 'isn't' was somewhere in the middle of it.  
  
"Well, well. Well. If it isn't Hairy Potty," sneered a blonde boy with a pointed face. He reminded James of a rat and he sniggered earning himself a glare from the boy. "Well, what's so funny, Potty."  
  
"You. I just realized how much you remind me of a rat when I look at you. All you need are whiskers and a tail." James earned another murderous glare from the blonde, but he was pleased to see embarrassment color the boy's pale cheeks.  
  
"I see Weasel isn't here to protect you."  
  
"His name isn't Weasel," James hoped, at least, that the boy's name wasn't Weasel. If it was he just sounded pretty stupid. "And I don't need him to protect me. It does look like you need those two to protect you, though." The boy just glared. 'Guess his name isn't Weasel. Thank gods. He must be that red head that Harry was with earlier,' James thought. "I see you don't deny it," James grinned and wondered who these guys were. The blonde resembled Lucius Malfoy so he assumed this was his son. He was positive that they couldn't be Harry's friends. No friend would be that cruel. He saw the blonde start to bring out his wand, but James was faster and covered the boy with his own. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," James warned lazily. He was used to dueling with Slytherins and this was typical behavior for them.  
  
"Good thing you're not, then," the boy sneered, not noticing James mouthing a charm.  
  
"True. I wouldn't like to go around in my pink boxer shorts and flanked by two overly large ballerinas. Leotards and tights don't flatter them very much," and with that James walked away quite smug. The three boys hadn't even realized that he'd done anything to them until it was too late. He just hoped that he hadn't caused too much trouble for Harry. He didn't know whether or not his son was a prankster like he was, but one could always hope. At least now he had an idea on what kind of book to look for. He wanted something on Voldemort and who he had killed, but what book would something like that be in in a school library? Maybe something like The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts. That sounded like a good place to start. He had just flipped the book open when he was interrupted by someone yelling at him thinking that he was Harry.  
  
"There you are, Harry! We've been looking for you everywhere!" A tall black haired boy ran over to James followed by a second boy. The first had his hair tied back in a ponytail and the second had short spiky black hair with red tips.  
  
"Quidditch practice started half an hour ago! Get you broom from your dorm and let's go! We're never going to beat Slytherin if you slack off."  
  
James watched the two boys race off back towards the Quidditch pitch. So, Harry was on the Quidditch team. James wondered what position his son played. Hopefully he played Chaser. As long as it wasn't Seeker, James was set. He could manage any position but that one. James ran up to the Gryffindor common room and into the boy's dormitories. He was very thankful that the Fat Lady had recognized him and had given him the pass word. He searched for the trunk with the initials H.P. and found Harry's Firebolt and raced back out towards the Quidditch pitch thanking the boys mentally for telling him where the broom was. It was actually a rather nice broom and he wondered if Sirius had been the one to give it to him. 


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
This wouldn't be so bad. Out of seven positions, there was only one that he couldn't play. What were the odds that his son would be a Seeker? Well they were 1/7 but that wasn't the point and James didn't want to think about that. Harry was probably not a Seeker. The fates wouldn't be that cruel to him. Thinking this calmed down James' insides as he walked into the sunlight onto the pitch.  
  
"Finally Potter gets here. Great Captain you make. You forget your own practices!" That boy with the black and red hair yelled at him with a grin. James assumed the kid was just teasing him, or at least he so hoped anyway. He later found out his name to be Devlynn Karnoth. James soon found out that Harry wasn't a beater, seeing as how no one handed him a club. Devlynn and the other black haired boy, Diablo McKintiere, from the library, were the two beaters. James thought it suiting to have the beaters' names both refer to the Devil. Somehow it just fit; bludgers create hell and who better to instigate it than two devils? They were frighteningly accurate with their aim as well and James was glad they weren't after him. He still didn't know what position Harry played, however, but the position of keeper was just knocked off the list of possibilities as Natalie McDonald resumed playing that. A boy named Zeta Holluaff apparently played Chaser, seeing as how he had the quaffle. James took a moment to stare. He had never seen a boy with purple hair much less with it braided down to mid calf. Halfway down the braid the purple faded away into white. That left two Chasers and Seeker and James with growing apprehension. James decided he'd join in as Chaser and if Harry wasn't a Chaser. Well then James didn't wanna think that far ahead.  
  
James couldn't help but notice the confused faces of Harry's teammates as he scored against a dumbfounded Keeper a few minutes into the game. He felt like his stomach had just fallen out through his feet. Harry was a.  
  
"Harry, well. uh, that was brilliant and all but. mind telling us just what the hell you're doing playing Chaser?" Diablo asked.  
  
. Seeker. BLOODY HELL!!! However to Diablo he replied calmly, "Just giving. um. a few pointers." James smiled innocently. If Harry was the captain then he could certainly give pointers if he wanted to. He had a feeling, however, that Harry would not give a pointer by playing someone else's position.  
  
"Yeah, well, knock it off now. We're playing Slytherin and every second of practice counts. They play dirty. You know that better than any of us. Play your own position now. You do remember what it isn't don't you?" Devlynn grinned. He liked Harry and lord knew everyone needed a laugh here and there, but there was just something funny about Harry today and he couldn't figure out what. But he would.  
  
"Of course I do!" James turned bright red.  
  
"Good to hear, now play it," What was wrong with Potter. He wasn't acting himself. Devlynn would swear to it that if anyone in the school could make a Polyjuice Potion that they had and that this really wasn't Harry. If that was the case then they shouldn't be practicing with him. He might be a spy. Dev kept an eye on Harry as he flew. To anyone who wasn't paying particular attention to the kid, it may have looked like everything was normal. To someone who was paying as close attention as Dev was, it was obvious that the boy, though he may look like Harry, he certainly didn't fly like Harry did. There was something physically different, too, so it couldn't be a Polyjuice Potion. Besides that would have worn off already. "Hey Har? Can we call it quits early? We've been practicing longer than you have today and well, honestly you're the best Seeker that Gryffindor has seen in a while and you've won us every match but one so I doubt you need that much practice anyway."  
  
"Uh. sure, why not. It's getting dark anyway," James was glad that Devlynn had suggested they end early, but he still had an uneasy feeling in his gut. He didn't want to embarrass Harry even more than he already had. He coasted to the ground and hopped off Harry's Firebolt, which was an amazing broom, James couldn't help but think. He wondered where Harry got it. It couldn't have been from Sirius. It would have been too expensive. James felt an arm drape around his shoulder holding him back just as he was about to head off to the dorms to put back Harry's broom. He glanced sideways and noticed that it was Devlynn.  
  
"Hold up a sec, wanna talk to you, Harry."  
  
"Sure," 'uh-oh. I think I'm in trouble.' James watched as the others left the pitch feeling very nervous. 'What could this be about' James wondered.  
  
"Anything wrong? Anything you feel like telling me? Like, I don't know. Your real name?" Dev grinned when he saw the boy's face visibly pale. So he had guessed right. This wasn't Harry. Then who the bloody hell was it?! And why did he look like Harry?  
  
"I. well. uh."  
  
"I'm soo sorry, Dev! Pomfrey just let me out of the hospital wing. Knocked my head earlier, then when I went to get my broom it wasn't there!" Harry came running over and James couldn't help but register the shock in his son's eyes when he saw him. "Oh, there's my broom."  
  
"So who is this guy? I already figured out he wasn't you. He tried playing Chaser and actually he's quite good at it, but he's not cut out for Seeker."  
  
"Uh well. he's my. twin, James," Harry's eyes begged James to go along with it. He completely forgot how observant Dev was and that he'd most likely notice the look and would also see through the ruse, even if he did happen to miss the look. Keara was the only one who could ever fool Devlynn which everyone assumed was because they were related and Devlynn doted on his older sister.  
  
"Oh? Then why has he not been here with you?" Dev looked at the two suspiciously after noticing the look Harry had given James. Apparently Harry hadn't meant identical twin because James was a bit taller and didn't have Harry's green eyes. That's what was different about them!  
  
"I've uh. been at a boarding school in the states. In Salem," James hoped it sounded believable.  
  
"I'll go with that for now until you decide to tell me the truth," Dev grinned at them. This could be fun. It really wasn't hard to mistake one for the other. They had to be related somehow if they naturally looked that much alike. He'd figure it out eventually. The expressions each wore were identical. At the moment it was one containing fear. 'Best to ease their minds.' "Don't worry I'll go along with that story and even help you with it if you want. I won't tell a soul." Again they donned identical expressions, this time of relief.  
  
"Thanks, Dev." Dev laughed when he saw their shocked faces. Apparently they hadn't realized how alike they were other than physically. They seemed to think alike as well, seeing as how both said it at the exact same time.  
  
"Okay then. Twins won't work. No one will ever believe that. Cousins is more logical, but not first or else Harry would have gone to stay with you instead of the Dursleys."  
  
"THE DURSLEYS! Whose bright idea was it to send you to those awful Muggles?! THEY HATE MAGIC!! They HATE Lils! Not to mention me!" James roared. "They probably thought that we deserved to die!"  
  
Harry's eyes went wide with shock and Dev smirked. He had a feeling he had just figured out what was going on. James Potter. If Potter was here then more than likely Evans, Black and Lupin couldn't be far. He hoped Pettigrew wasn't with them.  
  
"I. uh.it was. Dumbledore," Harry stammered quietly.  
  
"I thought he had better sense than that! I mean, yeah he's odd, but he should have known better than to stick you with them! When I get my hands on him."James trailed off as Dev put his hand on his shoulder.  
  
"It wasn't your son's fault that he was stuck with the Dursleys. It's not as if he wanted to be there. Stop yelling at him," Dev said gently.  
  
James' mouth dropped open, but Harry wasn't surprised that Devlynn had figured out the truth. Not with the way his dad was carrying on and with Dev knowing about time travel, being a wizard as well.  
  
"Oops, I mean it wasn't your cousin's fault," Dev's grin widened.  
  
"Wait a second. What do you mean was?" James looked suspiciously at Harry. "You aren't staying with them anymore?" James looked relieved.  
  
"Well. Erm. No, I'm not."  
  
"Great!" James smiled, thrilled. "So who are you staying with? Sirius? Remus?"  
  
"Staying with both now that I can."  
  
"What do you mean now that you can?" James started becoming suspicious that there was more to the story than he had originally thought.  
  
"Er."Harry answered intelligently.  
  
"You know, it's too bad you got Lils. My sister, Keara, would have liked you. Oh, that reminds me. Did I tell you Harry that she was gonna visit today?" Dev effectively interrupted the conversation before Harry was forced to tell something that he probably shouldn't be telling.  
  
"Oh no," Harry groaned. "How long is she staying for?"  
  
"Couple weeks. I think. Never really know with her. She that bad?" Dev laughed.  
  
"Sometimes when she's hyper and bouncing off the walls. Quite literally I might add. She's been known to do quite a lot of damage. She put me in the hospital wing for three days when she rebounded off a wall and smacked into me! Pomfrey was furious with her. She said it was bad enough how much I already visited her!" Dev laughed remembering that incident. James just looked confused. "We're going to need to stock a lot of sugar for her."  
  
"Sugar? Wouldn't that make it worse?" James looked even more confused.  
  
"You'd think that. Somehow it actually calms her down. We're not sure how that works." 


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
  
"DEVVY!!!" Devlynn winced. Only his sister would call him that which meant that in exactly five seconds he was going to be pounced upon and forced to give her a piggyback. Sometimes she could be so predictable, at least in Dev's mind she could be. He laughed at the idea of Keara being predictable and assumed that it was just him who thought she was. After all she was his sister and he knew her well.  
  
"4. 3." Devlynn began counting the seconds before impact off on his fingers. "2." Wham! "Ugh, you're early, Tryst," muttered a rather choked Dev.  
  
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Keara wore a confused look not quite understanding what her brother meant. Harry simply laughed understanding perfectly what had happened.  
  
"Nevermind. Why must you always do that?"  
  
"What? Did you not miss me around here?" Keara teased leaning over his shoulder to look at his face. "Something's either wrong or you promised not to tell," She knew how to read him like a book, but thankfully for him, she was the only one. She was the only one that he felt he could trust with anything. "I'll worm it out of you later," she whispered in his ear knowing that the other two guys Devlynn was with wouldn't overhear her. "Oh, 'eya Harry! Sorry that I didn't notice you sooner. I haven't seen my Devvy in a while," she grinned and gave Devlynn a rather loud kiss on his cheek. And he muttered something about it having been three weeks.  
  
"Hey Keara," Harry smiled at her and shook his head knowing what was in store for his friend. "And I never realized that three weeks was such a long time."  
  
"Oh hush. So, then, why has no one introduced me to your new friend? Eh, Devvy? I know I haven't met him before, but I'm assuming he's related to Harry," she was too damn perceptive for Dev's liking sometimes. He hated lying to her knowing that it would only hurt her, but he didn't know how Harry would feel if he told her. Dev knew that he'd end up telling her later, but Harry would never have to know that he had. She'd never once let anything slip unless she did so on purpose. Like that time she let it slip that Dev got stuck in the tree and couldn't get back down because she had removed the tree branches below him and it was too high to jump from. He had been younger at the time and hadn't known the magic that would have helped him get back down.  
  
"It's alright, you're just going to tell her anyway later, so it might as well be now. We can trust her."  
  
Devlynn smiled, thankful that he didn't have to piss off his sister because he had lied to her. She could hold a mean grudge when she wanted to.  
  
"Thank you, Harry. It's good to know people trust me. Unlike trusting someone like Professor I Must Be a God Snape who decided to tell the entire Slytherin house that Remus was a werewolf a few years back and therefore Remus resigned from teaching. He was a damn good teacher too! The bloody ugly git." Dev laughed. She hated Snape with a passion and could probably go on for days about all the things that she hated about him. "You're supposed to be able to trust teachers. I'd still like to know what on earth Dumbledore was thinking when he hired that slimy, greasy, disgusting, nauseating." She was abruptly cut off when a hand was placed over her mouth.  
  
"That eejit told about Remus?! I'll kill him! And he's a teacher? How the hell did he ever become a teacher?!" Devlynn snorted at James' outburst. Keara was going to become fast friends with this Potter he was sure.  
  
"I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. I like you," She grinned taking the offending hand away from her face.  
  
"I'm taken," James said warily remembering Devlynn's comment from earlier and Keara laughed. The other two laughed as well. Keara hadn't intended it the way it sounded, or maybe she did but if so then she was only teasing. She had a tendency to like to flirt.  
  
"When did you tell Dev that you were coming?" Harry asked her in the middle of her renewed tirade about why Snape was so evil and deserved to be humiliated before she could let slip something that Harry didn't want James to find out yet. Harry hoped that his dad never found out about Snape trying to send Sirius back to Azkaban. Because of the fact that he had been spying on Voldemort, she didn't think he deserved to die, just treated to a bit of his own medicine. Dev mentally thanked Harry for cutting her off. When she was hyper which apparently she was, she could talk for hours about nothing important. Or at least it seemed that way.  
  
"Oh, I told him a while ago."  
  
"HA! She damn well didn't tell me a while ago unless a while suddenly turned into meaning three hours ago," Dev muttered under his breath which caused Keara to kick him in the leg making him grunt.  
  
"Which means, knowing you, he found out most likely this morning," Harry grinned.  
  
"Not even. I wish it had been this morning. Then I would have been able to find a hiding place," He really wouldn't have, though, and he was sure that Harry knew this, too. Actually if he had known sooner he would have planned fireworks for her, or something like that. Keara knew he would have gone all out for her, but she didn't like it when he made a big fuss over her. That was the reason why she never gave him much warning when she visited.  
  
"I'm James, James Potter."  
  
'Oops, guess we sorta forgot to tell her before she started on about Snape. Oh well better late than never I guess,' Harry thought to himself.  
  
"Harry's dad," Dev supplied knowing that it was the information she really wanted to hear. "Sirius, Remus and Lily came with him."  
  
"Nice to meet you." She gave him one of those smiles that could muddle your brains if she chose to use it on you. It made Dev extremely glad to be her brother. It made him immune to all of what she liked to call her 'feminine charms.' Devlynn was at the moment very happy that he wasn't Potter or anyone else for that matter. "Time-Turner?" she asked.  
  
"No, we found a spell in one of the books in my family's library over the summer."  
  
"Ah," she gave a slight nod indicating her understanding.  
  
"So where did Dumbledore decide to put you? I know you gave him more than a three hour notice," Harry smirked.  
  
"I told him last week and he said he'd set up a Suite for me and that for the duration of the time I'm here anyone I wish can stay in there with me. As usual. Of course you'll keep me company. Won't you, Devvy?" He could deny her nothing. Well, almost nothing. He sometimes thought that they should have just been twins. They already had the same connection that twins tend to have and the same birthday, albeit separated by three years.  
  
"Of course I will. I wouldn't want you to get lonely now would I?" Dev teased and grinned.  
  
"Harry, you can stay if you'd like to, as well. So can your parents and their friends. And of course Ron, Zeta, Psi, Ginny and Hermione are also welcome, but I think we should keep it to that."  
  
Dev cleared his throat. She was doing this on purpose. Dev just knew it. "Aren't you forgetting someone?"  
  
"No, I don't think so," She smiled innocently back at him.  
  
"Oh, y'know, he's got black hair, normally in a ponytail, can kick your arse whenever he chooses to. Ring any bell?" Of course Dev would never actually let him kick her arse, but Dev was sure that Diablo would be more than willing to if given the chance.  
  
"Ohhhhhh, you mean Sirius. Well I suppose, but I'm sure Dumbledore has already made other arrangements for him."  
  
"No, I don't mean Sirius."  
  
"Well, I can't think of anyone else you could possibly mean. Unless you mean Snape but he doesn't wear his hair in a ponytail and you should know by now that I'd never let that git near my sleeping quarters."  
  
"No I didn't mean Snape. Try Diablo."  
  
"Who? I don't think I know who that is."  
  
"Y'know, my best friend?" she really could be exasperating at times.  
  
"I'm hurt. I thought I was your best friend," she pouted.  
  
"Tryst, you are my best friend," Dev pleaded wanting this torture and embarrassment to end.  
  
"But you just said."  
  
"You're both my best friends."  
  
"Not good enough," she sniffed as if she were about to cry.  
  
"Fine, Tryst, he's my second best friend."  
  
"You're lying," she looked miffed, but it was obvious that she was faking. James and Harry seemed to get a kick outta this, though. They were leaning into each other trying to hold each other up as they laughed.  
  
"Okay fine. I'm lying. He's just a different type of best friend. Happy now?"  
  
"So you admit it!"  
  
"You're a real brat you know that?"  
  
"Of course I do. I have you to remind me," she kissed his cheek again loudly. "Of course Diablo can stay with us, too."  
  
"Good."  
  
"Oh dear god, not again. Can't you ever stay away? Wasn't being here for seven full years enough for you to torture poor souls? You should have just repeated a damn year! You're here enough for it," Diablo's voiced called out as he walked down the hallway with Zeta and Zeta's little brother, Psi.  
  
"Somehow I find it wrong for you to be calling god dear when your name means devil. And no as long as Dev's here I'll be here as much as I damn well please. So there!" she stuck her tongue out at Diablo and then grinned. "'Eya, Zeta. "Eya Psi, cutie. I still can't believe you two hang around with that annoying twit over there," Keara pointed over at Diablo. "It's harder to believe that Dev puts up with him, though."  
  
"Eh, I annoy him, too, so all's good," Zeta grinned, braid swinging back and forth as he jogged over to the group.  
  
"Sod off, Bubbles," Diablo glared at her.  
  
"Watch it McKintiere. She's still my sister." Calling her Bubbles was the easiest and quickest way to piss her off and Dev didn't want to have to deal with an enraged sister wanting to murder his best friend and lover. Dev rolled his eyes as she stuck her tongue out again looking smug. Diablo gave her a dirty look. He was like the annoying little brother that she wished she never had and had never wanted to begin with.  
  
"Spoiled brat."  
  
"I know," she gloated and hugged Dev's neck. They didn't really hate each other as it looked. Actually, Dev thought she would have even liked Diablo had he been older and straight. Well, and maybe if she hadn't known him since he was five. Oh, and the small fact that he was her brother's boyfriend.  
  
"We should probably find the others, find your room, and get our stuff settled in. We should see Dumbledore before dinner about James and them. If they don't mind that is," Dev looked at James in question.  
  
"Actually, we wanted to see Dumbledore while we were here. We thought he might enjoy our latest prank. Well we haven't actually done it yet, but being here is a start."  
  
"Potter! We're in trouble! Someone found out about us! We know you're down here somewhere!" The six watched as five kids came running around the corner of the hall. Two were Hermione and Ron. The other three were assumed to be the three that James had come with. The redhead had to be Lily and the other two were most likely Sirius and Remus.  
  
"Oh, he found you," they pulled up short and out of breath.  
  
"That reminds me of why I came looking for you," Diablo suddenly remembered. "I don't think that guy at practice was Harry."  
  
"Great job Sherlock as if it wasn't already obvious," Keara rolled her eyes and grinned immediately understanding what had happened before she had gotten there. Harry and James once again burst out laughing and had to hold onto each other in order to remain standing up. Diablo glanced at them as if he were just noticing them there for the first time, his jaw dropping.  
  
"Well, of course it wasn't Harry. It was whoever that guy is with Harry," Zeta gestured towards James.  
  
"We'll explain about that after we get to Keara's room and settle in," Dev replied as Keara hopped off his back.  
  
"All y'all are invited and unfortunately even you Diablo. Dev insisted. Go figure. I'll take James, Lily, Remus and Sirius to my rooms. You guys go get your stuff. You can use the map to figure out where we are," and with that she turned on her heel and walked off not waiting to see if she was being followed. She knew she was. They watched the five go and then headed off to Gryffindor Tower to get their stuff. Devlynn explained to Ron, Hermione, Zeta, Psi and Diablo about the situation with switching rooms for a while to Keara's Suite of rooms, not that it surprised them much. This wasn't the first time that they had done this, but this time it was looking as if it would be a little bit more interesting than usual. 


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
  
Keara was busy poking her nose into every nook and cranny of the spacious room. According to Devlynn this was normal behavior for her. Everyone was positive that Devlynn would have tried convincing you that pigs could fly without magic if he thought for a second that you might believe him. He also said that Dumbledore had a soft spot for his sister's curiosity and always put her in a different set of rooms whenever she visited, which was very often, so that she wouldn't get too bored. She was quite pretty actually. The kind of girl who'd make you look twice and Sirius definitely looked twice. Actually he found himself looking quite a bit more than twice. Whenever she happened to catch him looking at her, he'd quickly pretend to be looking at something near her and comment on it in hopes that she wouldn't notice that it had really been her that he was looking at. Sirius looked away for the last time and looked at James and Harry. It looked as though James was getting along with Harry really well. He was glad about that, but they still needed to explain what they had done to the rest of them. Not all of them knew.  
  
"Ron and Harry know," Sirius mused aloud, but quietly to no one in particular. "I assume that Hermione has found out from Ron, since she was at the hospital wing with him earlier when Harry was in there. Harry and James let it slip to Devlynn after Quidditch," Sirius began laughing hysterically (causing quite a few strange looks to be cast his way) as he thought about what James had told him about Harry's Quidditch practice that James had filled in for. "I would have paid to see James play today. He can't play Seeker worth jack shit. It's probably the only position in Quidditch that he can't manage and his son just happens to play that position. Of course when James gets on the field he goes and plays CHASER!" Sirius broke off as another fit a laugher hit him. "All the looks he must have gotten from the rest of the team!" Sirius collected himself enough to keep going. "Oh. Yeah. Where was I? Dev definitely told Keara. They might as well be joined at the hip, they're that close. Well I don't mean physically thank god! That'd just be sick. They're obviously related. I think Diablo, Ginny, Psi, and Zeta are the only ones who don't know who we are. Although, none of them really know what we were doing here, or how we got here though. Hey Prongs! Mightn't you be forgetting to do something?"  
  
"Er." Apparently explaining things had slipped his mind.  
  
Keara jumped up from where she had been laying down reading and was suddenly sitting Indian style halfway across the room in front of James as if it were story hour. "OH! That's Right! You haven't explained anything yet."  
  
"Explain?" James' eyes clouded with confusion.  
  
"Damn she moves fast!" Sirius stared. He swore that her movement had only been distinguishable by a blur. "She was just lying there happy as a clam."  
  
Sirius was cut off by a low chuckle off to one side. He looked over to see Diablo sprawled next to him. "Wonder who came up with that."  
  
"With what?" Sirius looked confused. He wasn't quite sure as to what Diablo was talking about.  
  
"Happy as a clam. How do they know clams are happy? Maybe they're all really miserable. Now wouldn't that be interesting," Diablo smiled a mischievous smile  
  
"Ummm. yeah."  
  
"Her moods reminded me of a rollercoaster."  
  
"What's a rollercoaster?"  
  
"A Muggle ride that goes up and down a lot," Diablo replied actually knowing the answer for once. "She often goes from being completely calm to excessively hyper in less than a heartbeat. Or visa versa," Diablo smiled again noticing Sirius' slight blush at being caught watching Keara.  
  
Keara glanced over her shoulder at the two, "I heard that."  
  
"And?"  
  
"Nothing just thought I should let you know. I felt I should give you warning. I'd sick Dev on you if you told Sirius anything about me that I wouldn't want him to know. Oh, and I'm surprised that you knew what a rollercoaster was. Usually you don't know what the Muggle stuff you talk about actually are."  
  
"Oh? You mean like your nickname Bubbles?" Diablo grinned wickedly.  
  
Keara growled sounding very much like her animagus form would do so.  
  
"You might wanna be careful there, Di. You don't want a panther at your throat," Zeta warned as he remembered it happening before.  
  
"Bubbles," taunted Diablo.  
  
Keara lunged toward him eyes flashing. Diablo smirked as he watched Devlynn grab her around the waist mid-leap and haul her to the floor a safe distance away from him.  
  
"Close call, you eejit!" Devlynn hissed. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"  
  
"Diablo stop picking fights with Keara. You know you wouldn't be able to win it. She'd go for your throat as soon as she changed," Zeta commented.  
  
"I could too win! A panther is nothing compared to a dragon!" Diablo pouted.  
  
Zeta snorted, "yeah a dragon the size of a rooster. I think she could take you."  
  
"I'm smart enough to end it before you'd be able to transform," Keara added primly while glaring daggers at him and struggling to get free of her brother's grasp.  
  
"That's enough!" Hemione stood in between the two. "We have other stuff more important to talk about than your petty daily arguments."  
  
"At least while she's here, Diablo's unlikely to get Howlers every day now. He's got her here to yell at him instead rather than sending a Howler," Psi giggled which made Keara smile. She had a soft spot for the first year and enjoyed mothering him from time to time since he no longer had a mother of his own. Diablo simply glared not happy about being reminded that every day Keara wasn't at the castle he received a Howler from her about something or another.  
  
"Dev you can let her go now. She's safe. It's Diablo I'd worry about now," Ron pointed out.  
  
Devlynn let his sister go and cast a warning glance at Diablo. "He won't try anything."  
  
"Good. Now, would one of you please explain why you are here?" Hermione guided everyone back onto the important topic.  
  
"Oh, right. That explanation," James blushed having completely forgotten all about it while he had been getting to know his son. "Well, I'm James Potter, Harry's dad. That's Sirius Black, my best friend, Remus Lupin, my other best friend, and that's Lily Evans, my girlfriend and Harry's mother. Yeah, I realize that Lils and I are supposed to be dead."  
  
"How did you find that out?" Hermione asked casting a suspicious glance at Harry.  
  
"I didn't tell him! I don't know how he found out. I didn't even know that he knew!" Harry said defensively.  
  
"I overheard some first-years talking about Harry and what happened when I was in the library earlier. Well, anyway. We came from the past. We found a spell in one of the books in my family's library that would send us to the future and into another dimension so that we wouldn't be expected. We thought it'd be fun to prank McGonagall so we decided to give it a try and wudduyaknow it worked," James grinned.  
  
"I'm also Harry's godfather, but Prongs over there forgot to mention that. The twit. Well, we also thought Dumbledore might enjoy seeing us again. We never thought we'd see Snape here still so that is just going to make the trip that much better. It's always a perk to get a chance to get the best of Sevvy," Sirius grinned maniacally.  
  
James went back to chatting with Harry now that things had been explained to everyone.  
  
"Uh, Sirius?" Sirius looked up at the sound of Keara's voice calling him. "You've got yourself a problem." She was bent over what looked like to be the Marauder's Map again quite clam apparently having gotten over her homicidal urge towards Diablo. "Your older version is here as well," she pointed to a dot on the map labeled Sirius Black who happened to be sitting in Dumbledore's office at the moment. He got up and leaned down over her shoulder to look at the map, leaning much closer to her than was actually necessary.  
  
Devlynn watched Sirius Black with narrowed eyes. He knew Keara could take care of herself perfectly well, but that never seemed to stop him from feeling protective of her. She was his little sister. Okay so she was older than him, but she was still much smaller. Sirius looked up meeting Devlynn's gaze for a few seconds and then back at the map leaning slightly closer to Keara and whispering something in her ear that Dev noticed made her blush. He was going to have to keep a close watch on Black. He didn't trust him anywhere within yelling distance of his sister, but he couldn't do anything about it now without seeming like an overbearing prick. Sirius stayed close to her and grinned to himself. Devlynn need never know that what he had whispered to Keara was about Dev, himself. He knew Dev would ask what he had said, but he had a feeling that she would give him a run for his money first, but for the time being Dev could only sit back and watch.  
  
"You did WHAT to Malfoy!?" Keara and Sirius' heads jerked up from looking at the map and instead looked at Harry whose sudden outburst at Prongs had startled everyone. Sirius assumed that whoever Malfoy was, his guess would be Lucius' spawn, he was probably a twit and deserved whatever James had done to him.  
  
"Well, I didn't think he was a friend of yours," James said in defense. "I figured that you would have better taste in friends."  
  
"He isn't, but I find that hysterical!" Harry could hardly contain himself and accidentally fell off the couch he was laying on. He just barely missed Keara, but knocked Sirius into her and managed to hit his head on the floor and still continued to laugh while holding his head with one hand and his stomach with the other. James was leaning over the arm of the chair he was sitting in laughing down at Harry. Dev glared at Sirius for the hundredth time when he noticed that Sirius hadn't separated himself from his sister yet.  
  
"Prongs, what'd you do now? And why the bloody hell didn't you let me help?" Sirius pouted indignantly.  
  
"Well you weren't there. That's why."  
  
"Err. Good point."  
  
"Still what did you do to him?" Keara asked eagerly and watched as both Potters were violently attacked again with another fit of laughter.  
  
"Who woulda thought that a Slytherin would ever wear pink boxers!" James could hardly get the sentence out of his mouth because he was laughing so hard.  
  
"Malfoy wears pink boxers?!" Diablo stared at James with an open mouth making his face resemble that of a fish out of water. Both Keara and Sirius seemed to notice that fact and grinned at each other. Sirius conjured up a camera and Keara took the picture of Wide Mouth Bass Diablo. Keara conjured up a picture of an actual bass and attached it next to the picture of Diablo. Both she and Sirius laughed at the end result and spread it around the room drawing laughs from the others as well.  
  
"Well, no, I don't think so, but a nice little charm I used made sure he did today." More gales of laughter broke out, but this time everyone else in the room joined in.  
  
"That's not even the best of it!" Harry gasped, holding his aching stomach. "Crabbe. Goyle. Dad put 'em in. in. leotards an'. an." Harry broke off not being able to finish.  
  
"TUTUS!!!" The laughter grew louder about the room as everyone mentally pictured the three Slytherins decked out in their pink attire and forced to walk all the way back to the dungeons. Harry only hoped that Creevy had gotten a few pictures. 


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
  
"Dumbledore, do you really think it wise to have let Harry out of the hospital wing?" Sirius was truly worried about his godson's behavior. It just couldn't be possible for him to have seen James and Lily. And hallucinating wasn't a good thing for Harry to be doing. But that meant, if Harry was hallucinating then Ron had to be, too, because Ron said he saw them as well and he hadn't hit his head.  
  
"Poppy said he was fine. I trust her judgment. Why wouldn't it be wise?"  
  
"He was going on about seeing his Mum and Dad and he said that was the reason he passed out." Sirius wondered if Harry had really seen them. He seriously doubted the boys had. but, if so, how had they gotten there?  
  
"Are you sure he didn't actually see them?" Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.  
  
"But how could he have? They're dead," Sirius quietly.  
  
"Why don't you go have a chat with him and find out? He's in Miss Karnoth's suite of rooms."  
  
"I think I will. Thank you for your time Headmaster." Sirius left and headed off towards the set of rooms Keara had been given this time. She'd already visited twice before this current visit and school had only been in session for three months so far.  
  
~ * ~  
  
"Aw, bloody hell. Guys we're gonna have company in a few minutes." Keara had just glanced away from the game of chess she had been playing with Sirius to look at the Map laying on the floor next to her.  
  
"Named?"  
  
"Sirius Black."  
  
"But I'm already here," Sirius looked confused forgetting that there was an older version of himself at the school as well.  
  
"You didn't die. Only James and Lily did, well, and so did Peter but no one cares about him, the Traitor. The older version of you is heading towards the Suite."  
  
"Well this should be weird," Sirius mumbled.  
  
"Wait. Peter's a traitor?" asked James who was wondering what she meant by that.  
  
"Yeah. Sirius was in Azkaban for twelve years because of him. Obviously that changed Sirius a bit," Keara felt the need to warn them. She had known Sirius for a few years now and the haunted look that she often saw in his eyes still bothered her.  
  
"WHAT!? Why did I go to Azkaban?!"  
  
"Peter framed you for the death of James, Lily, and himself along with twelve Muggles."  
  
"Peter's the reason we died?" James asked in disbelief.  
  
"Yeah, he was. He was your secret keeper instead of Sirius when you went into hiding. You didn't know that Peter was a death eater. Everyone thought Sirius was the secret keeper. He had assumed that Voldemort would go after Sirius and that you'd be safe. In a way he was right. Voldemort would have gone after him, but unfortunately he was close to Peter. Sirius went after Peter after you died. Peter's the one who killed the Muggles not him, but he got blamed for it anyway. Sirius thought he had killed Peter, but he hadn't. When the ministry showed up on the street they took Sirius to Azkaban. Sirius found out that Peter was still alive the summer before Harry's 3rd year and that he would be at Hogwart's and broke out to protect Harry."  
  
"But no one's ever broken out of Azkaban before," James reminded her.  
  
"Sirius was the first and only to have ever done it. Being an animagus can come in handy apparently. It confused the guards enough so that he could escape. Anyway, Sirius had his trial this past summer to prove his innocence. You already knew that you died so I don't see why you shouldn't know the whole truth. Besides. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe in your dimension you aren't supposed to die that way. Maybe you aren't supposed to die at all. I hope not," Keara hugged herself and looked down sadly. This was a subject that deeply bothered her. She put her deepest faith in love and trust and friendship. It was hard for her to talk about a friend betraying someone in the worst way. The way that brought death. Sirius gently pulled her into his arms knowing that she needed comfort. This time it had nothing to do with angering her brother, this was solely to give her what she needed. She lent her head on his shoulder and he rested his cheek against her hair, lost in thought. He really didn't want to go to Azkaban, nor did he want to lose his best friend. Was it possible to avoid it? He hoped so.  
  
Everyone looked up as they heard someone on the outside of the door saying the password that would allow them in.  
  
"Hey, everyone. Harry, Dumbledore said you were in here," Sirius called as he opened the door to the common room of Keara's suite. "I wanted to talk to you about what you sai." Sirius' voice trailed off as he saw exactly who was in the common room. Harry was in there, but it looked as if there were two of him. There was a girl who looked like Lily, and boy who looked like Remus when he was younger playing exploding snap with Devlynn, Zeta, and Diablo, Psi was studying what looked like a dark arts book, Ron was beating poor Hermione at Wizard chess without even trying and Ginny was looking on, and Keara was curled up on a boy's lap. The boy, he was shocked to realize, just happened to look exactly like he had when he was younger. He couldn't help but stare. "Who are all of you?"  
  
"Well, I'm Devlynn and you should know that by now. That's Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Diablo and Zeta and you should know them, too. That's Psi, Zeta's little brother. He's a first year now, but I'm sure you've met him since he's been staying here with Zeta when school's been in session for the past few years. That's Harry and if you don't know who he is then we don't know who you are. That's my sister, Keara hitting on Sirius although I wish she wouldn't, and that's James and Lily and Remus. I think you know them all. Or at least should unless you're getting old and forgetful already. Dumbledore hasn't even started to forget yet," Dev grinned at Sirius as if this were a perfectly normal everyday happening.  
  
"I am NOT hitting on Sirius!" snapped Keara just as Sirius snapped, "She is NOT hitting on me!" they both glared at Devlynn as James, Remus, Harry, and Diablo laughed. The adult Sirius just looked lost and confused. He had a feeling that he had missed something going on between those two.  
  
"They've got a point, Dev. Keara was upset. Sirius was just being nice," Remus pointed out reasonably. Of course Dev knew but he was still frustrated that Keara had willingly gone to Sirius instead of coming to him. After all, he had always been the one there for her and she had always gone to him in the past.  
  
"You were too far away," Keara explained as if reading Devlynn's mind.  
  
Sirius closed the door quietly behind him still trying to take it all in. Harry had been telling the truth. How could he not have been? The evidence was sitting right in front of him. Sirius collapsed in the nearest empty chair and stared for a while.  
  
James got up a few minutes later and pulled Sirius out of the chair. "Come on Padfoot. Time to talk. I really don't care whether or not you're ready to so don't bother arguing with me." Lily followed the two into one of the empty rooms. James leaned against a wall and watched Sirius knowing that if given enough time Sirius would break and say what James had a feeling he wanted to tell him. He knew Sirius well enough to know that he had most likely blamed himself.  
  
Sirius couldn't think of anything to say except to ask for forgiveness. He couldn't ask, but he wanted James and Lily's forgiveness for what he'd done so badly. It was his fault that they died, but it had been an accident. He still couldn't tell them what happened though. He couldn't in case it changed the future and made things worse than they already were. But he couldn't hold back saying quietly, "I've missed you." Once that was out he couldn't hold back the rest. His voice came out broken and miserable, "I. I'm sorry. It was."  
  
"Not your fault." Sirius was cut off sharply from finishing his sentence by James. "Keara told us what happened. I. I'm sorry that you went to Azkaban. I'm sorry for what Peter did to you."  
  
"She shouldn't have told you."  
  
"We already knew that we had died. That was one of the first things I found out. Keara figured since we knew that much we might as well know all of it. If she hadn't told us we would have found out some other way. You know that. Lily and I don't blame you. You did what you thought was best. We would have done the same thing in your position. In theory it was a great idea. Unfortunately none of us knew what Peter was. You're still the best friend I've ever had," James hugged Sirius fiercely. "We'll do better the next time around."  
  
"Where we come from it hasn't happened yet," Lily continued the thought James was voicing.  
  
"And it never will," James smiled.  
  
"You can't! It will change everything!"  
  
"That's the point, Padfoot."  
  
"But."  
  
"What could possibly be made worse by us not dying, Sirius?" Lily asked.  
  
"Well. uh."  
  
"Precisely," Lily grinned knowing that she had a point. "Although, Harry may or may not enjoy younger siblings. But I doubt that will be a problem or of great importance."  
  
"Harry wouldn't be famous anymore, but somehow I doubt that he'd mind," James added thoughtfully. "He seems to hate it. Of course I'll make sure he meets the Weasleys and Hermione. I wouldn't take his best friends away. You'll still be the godfather and of course he'll see you and Remus all the time. So that isn't a problem either. Padfoot, this is a good thing."  
  
"Well, I suppose, but what about..."  
  
"And besides Paddy," Lily easily cut him off and pretended that he hadn't been about to say anything. "It wouldn't change this world any. Only the one James and I came from. You could always visit us there if you'd like and see how things turned out," She smiled.  
  
"I think I just might, "Padfoot grinned feeling much better than he had before about the situation, but still worried for the other world whose future would be altered  
  
Sirius left later that evening after catching up on the day's events and spending time with Harry to make sure he was doing all right. Sirius had worried about how Harry was dealing with meeting his parents. Apparently Harry was handling it remarkably well after the first initial shock had warn off. He loved being given the chance to get to know his parents. They had also invited him to visit whenever he wished as long as he let Sirius know that he was going. Lily had shared the spell with all of them along with the invitation to visit whenever they pleased. Sirius headed off to visit with Dumbledore. He had a feeling that Dumbledore already knew what was going on. Sirius had decided to spend a few days at the castle. He was curious to see what kind of trouble The Marauders would get his godson and his friends into. Besides, he wanted to see about maybe getting a job teaching at Hogwart's and that was why he wanted to visit Dumbledore later after dinner. He thought he might enjoy teaching Arithmancy since Professor Vector wanted to retire. The students were finally beginning to get to him. 


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7  
  
"Keara we need to talk," Devlynn grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the main room and into a smaller one next to it.  
  
"OW! Let go, Dev." He let go of her arm, but stood between her and the door. "What's up?"  
  
"What did Black say to you earlier?"  
  
"He's said a lot of things to me."  
  
"You know what I mean. What did he say when the two of you were looking at the Map?" Dev crossed his arms over his chest looking impatient.  
  
"Oh, then!" Keara grinned knowing that this could be fun. "Well he told me that we should run away together tonight. Isn't that romantic?" Keara faked swooning and collapsed into Devlynn's arms. "He's so dreamy. He wants to take me away with him to his world," she batted her eyelashes and sighed theatrically. "Think I should go with him?"  
  
"No. I think you should stay here where you belong," Dev growled.  
  
"But what if I want to go?" Keara pouted and stood up.  
  
"Tough."  
  
"But Devvy-pooh!" Keara whined. "He loves me. He told me so."  
  
"He's lying."  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"I'm a guy. Trust me. All he wants to do is get into your pants. Stay away from him."  
  
"I don't want to. Besides, what if I want him in my pants?"  
  
"Tough and I better not catch him in your pants."  
  
"Yeah it is. For you," she smiled sweetly as he growled in anger. "And if I want him in my pants, he'll be there whether or not you approve of it," she reached up on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his cheek. "Don't worry all he actually said to me was that you were glaring at him and that it'd be fun to tweak you a little so I indulged him a bit by pretending to blush. It worked," Keara grinned up at her brother's angry and embarrassed face. "Give him a chance. He's sweet and you don't have to worry about me forgetting all about you. Now stop being jealous and acting like a prick."  
  
Dev watched as she walked out of the room and snuck up on an unsuspecting Psi, tickling him causing him to shriek and beg for mercy. Dev joined everyone a few minutes later and reminded them that they still had to work out their story. They all had to be telling the same one or it wouldn't work.  
  
The entire group sat around in a circle in the middle of the room, some in chairs, some on couches and a few on the floor. Each threw out theirs ideas to the group for it to be discussed and either used or tossed aside. They finally all agreed upon the same story for when the expected questions came. James was to be Harry's distant cousin, Jeigh being the grandson of great-uncle, Garett that Harry had never known he had because he had been the black sheep of the family and was never spoken about. It was rumored that he had died before having kids. James said he just moved and changed his name from Potter to Erdiths and had himself encouraged the rumor that he had died in hopes of keeping his kids away from the rest of the Potters. Sirius was going to be Jeigh's brother, Strider. Ravi Fauthner, otherwise known as Remus, was close friends with Jeigh and Strider and has been staying with them since Voldemort had killed his parents. Lily became Ravi's sister, Lara, who was also Jeigh's girlfriend.  
  
"I think it's time we saw Dumbledore," James held everyone back from leaving for dinner like they had planned to do when they had finished figuring everything out.  
  
"Fizzing Whizby," Harry said once they got to the statue of the gargoyle. It immediately sprang to life and hopped off to the side revealing the entrance to Dumbledore's office. They trouped up the stairs, knocked on the door and waited.  
  
"Come in, come in," Dumbledore's cheerful voice could be heard through the door.  
  
The gang opened the door and walked in.  
  
"I was wondering when you would come to see me," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he conjured up the extra chairs that would be needed to accommodate everyone. Lily sat down on the arm of James' chair and leaned against his shoulder while he put his arm around her waist. Zeta crashed out on his back on the plush carpeting not being one to like chairs, Psi on his stomach close by. Diablo sprawled out in a chair with Dev leaning on the back of it. Keara chose to lean her hip against the edge of Dumbledore's desk. The rest all sat like normal people who had been called before the headmaster.  
  
"Hiya, Dumbledore," James grinned.  
  
"I must say I am slightly surprised to see the four of you."  
  
"Somehow, I doubt that," Zeta was absentmindedly playing with the tail of his braid, which he was holding in front of his face. "Not much seems to surprise you."  
  
"So what's the story?" asked Dumbledore wanting to be able to answer the teacher's questions about the four's presence.  
  
"Morning glory," Diablo grinned.  
  
"Uh. All right then," Ron looked utterly lost.  
  
"Muggle thing," replied Harry, Hermione and Diablo.  
  
"What is with you and Muggle stuff? You. Are. A. Pure. Blood. you half wit," Zeta looked annoyed. He didn't mind the Muggle references every once in a while, but Diablo took it too far sometimes. He brought up Muggles every chance he got.  
  
"Now Zeta. There's no need to lose your temper," Dumbledore reminded Zeta where he was and that it probably wasn't the best idea to get in a fight in front of the headmaster.  
  
"Now, I'd like to hear the story that I'm sure you've come up with."  
  
"Okay. Well, I'm going by Jeigh and I'm related to Harry through a great uncle named Garett, that everyone thought had died before having children, but the uncle had actually changed his name to Erdiths and spread the rumor himself that he had died. Sirius will be going by Strider and is my brother," James decided on being the spokesperson for the group since no one else was speaking up yet.  
  
"I'm Ravi Fauthner, and Lily is my sister, Lara. She's still Jeigh's girlfriend. Our parents were killed by Voldemort and we're staying with Jeigh," added Remus.  
  
"Impressive," Dumbledore smiled. "Thought this all out have you?"  
  
"We all talked about it earlier in the room. We knew that we'd have to give people some kind of answers," Diablo replied.  
  
"And how did Jeigh and Strider find out about Harry?" Dumbledore doubted that they had thought of this and he would be correct judging by the blank looks on everyone's face. "I suggest that you fi."  
  
"They met through Keara," Devlynn interrupted quietly. "Strider met her over the summer and they started seeing each other. Keara introduced the four of them to Harry, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Diablo, Zeta, Psi and myself."  
  
"Now I'm impressed. You deciding to give Siri a chance with your sister?" Diablo stared up at Devlynn.  
  
"No, but it makes sense if they're going to pull this off," Dev glared at Sirius who glared right back.  
  
"It makes sense knowing you to still hate him too," Zeta muttered from his place on the floor. "Everyone knows you act like her father sometimes. If it was possible you'd try putting her into a convent."  
  
"He has," Keara chirruped brightly. "Didn't work. The nun's thought I was too much of a Jezebel to be able to reform me."  
  
"Well it looks as if all the holes have been filled. You may leave. And Devlynn, do try to get along. You're usually not so hostile."  
  
~ * ~  
  
"Dumbledore, who are those children?" McGonagall asked the headmaster sitting next to her at the head table during dinner that evening.  
  
"Friends and relatives of Mr. Potter. Very nice children. Very polite," Dumbledore replied casually his eyes twinkling with mirth.  
  
"They look very familiar."  
  
"I agree. Jeigh does look rather like Mr. Potter doesn't he?"  
  
"Jeigh?" McGonagall questioned.  
  
"Yes, one of young Harry's relatives."  
  
"I didn't think that he had any other than the Dursleys."  
  
"I didn't either, my dear Minerva. Apparently Harry's uncle didn't die before having kids as everyone was led to believe."  
  
"I see. They still look familiar. Other than Jeigh resembling Mr. Potter so closely."  
  
"Mmm. have you tried the chicken tonight? It's excellent."  
  
McGonagall gave Dumbledore a sideways glance. She had a feeling that he knew something more about the children than he was letting on.  
  
~*~  
  
A couple days later proved that Creevy had indeed gotten pictures and copies were presently plastered to every available wall in the castle compliments of the Marauders, Lily, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Devlynn, Diablo, Keara, Psi and Zeta. A couple had even found their way into Hogsmeade and to the boys' parents. Draco had received a particularly nasty Howler from his parents about it. They were clearly not pleased. Snape had 'misplaced' all the potion ingredients that he had needed for his classes the past two days and had been forced to cancel them. Unfortunately it had caused them to write a nasty essay due later that week, but few minded. Everyone was still rather pleased that they didn't have to put up with Snape during class. A lengthy essay was better than a Snape any day in their opinion. The gossipy Hufflepuffs had mysteriously all lost their voices after the Marauders had overheard them gushing over Harry Potter's cousins and friends. They had yet to get their voices back much to their dismay. Keara and Sirius enjoyed going out of their way to tease them by reminding them of the fact that they couldn't gossip any longer. One by one the Slytherins had started turning green from head to toe in honor of their house color. Later that day, green bull frogs had been found in every bowl of soup at the Slytherin table during lunch. The frogs then continued to torment the Slytherin's by hopping along after them everywhere they went acting as eac of the Slytherin's own personal mascots.  
  
"Now all we need to do is figure out a way to get rid of Peeves and we'll be all set for tonight."  
  
"Harry knows how to do that, James," Keara commented.  
  
"He does?"  
  
"Yeah, he figured it out I think in his first year or so."  
  
"Oh that," Harry blushed. "I just did the first thing that came to me. I had no idea that it would work, but I didn't want to get caught."  
  
"So what'd you do?"  
  
"Pretended to be the Bloody Baron."  
  
"And that worked?" James sounded awestruck.  
  
"Actually yeah. It was pretty funny. Peeves sounded terrified," Harry chuckled.  
  
"He took off like a bat outta hell," Keara smiled. "Just can't use it too often or he'd get suspicious."  
  
"Yeah, I guess he would. He might be dead and annoying, but he isn't stupid. I'll have to tell Sirius and Remus about that later."  
  
That night the Slytherins were all forced to sleep in the Great Hall after all of their toilets exploded and flooded their dungeon quarters. Snape swore that it had something to do with Potter and his friends, but since they all had more than one alibi, no one would believe him of his suspicions however accurate they might be. 


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8  
  
"Why does Devlynn call her Tryst?" Sirius was sure that Diablo had to know the answer to that. After all, he was Dev's best friend.  
  
"Her middle name is Trystan. Dev's the only one she'll let use that nick- name so far, other then the rest of her family." Diablo completely misinterpreted the meaning of Sirius' mischievous grin thinking that he thought it funny to watch Keara impersonate a bouncy ball. He hadn't realized that Sirius hadn't noticed her hyperactivity yet. He would soon, it was hard to not notice when she accidentally knocked over a chair and it made a loud thud as it crashed onto the floor knocking Harry out of it.  
  
"OW! Dev I TOLD you that this would happen! If you ask me I'd swear she has it in for me!" Harry yelled across the room to Dev who merely laughed.  
  
"You're the one who didn't move out of the way," Dev grinned.  
  
"Keara's bouncing off the walls! She's LITERALLY bouncing off the WALLS! Like a rubber ball or something!" Sirius stared in shock as a black blur swooshed by him narrowly missing him and Diablo.  
  
"Don't worry. She does that a lot." Sirius turned to see Diablo grinning. He had just been staring open mouthed at Keara who resembled more of a blur than a young woman anymore. Dev had stolen her away from him half an hour ago to 'catch up' as Dev had called it. Sirius wasn't sure what they had been talking about, but she had ended up getting hyper and Dev had laughed. Sirius assumed that Dev had done it on purpose to scare him away from his sister. If that had been the objective, it hadn't worked. It was too much fun to irritate Devlynn. Sirius hoped that he could get a chance to talk to Keara and get her to go along with his little prank on her brother. She seemed to be the type that would be willing to.  
  
"Doesn't she get hurt?"  
  
"She used to."  
  
"What, did she finally lose all feeling in her nerves?" Sirius snorted and thought that she was probably just about as insane as he was.  
  
"Nah, she wouldn't do it if it hurt. When she was little she couldn't help it though. She might be crazy when she's hyper but she's not dumb."  
  
"Then why doesn't it hurt her anymore?"  
  
"Well, when she was about eight, her Mum and Dad got tired of her breaking bones and such so they stuck her on an all sugar diet until they could find a charm that would keep her from getting hurt."  
  
"All sugar? Wouldn't that make it worse?"  
  
"That's what I thought, too when Dev told me. She was bouncing off the walls one day and her Grandma came over for a visit and gave her some chocolate for a treat. She hadn't known that Keara was hyper so she didn't think anything of it. Her Mum flipped when Dev ran and told her that Grandma gave Keara chocolate while she was hyper. She went looking for Keara and found her peacefully sitting on the living room floor playing with her toys while she finished off her treat. They figured out that sugar calms her down and if she eats enough of it it'll eventually put her to sleep, albeit she'll feel extremely sick, but she'd still be calm. They conducted a little experiment every time she got hyper and gave her sugar. Worked every time. Luckily they didn't have to put her on the sugar diet for long. She doesn't tend to like too many sweets. Makes her feel sick."  
  
"How long was it for?"  
  
"A little less than a day. Her parents found a spell that would in a way turn her to rubber or at least it makes her look that way when she 'hits' walls. What it actually does is quicken her reflexes so that she can cushion herself to the impact in an extremely short amount of time. It takes less than a second so to her, while she bounces, she feels as if she's going very slow when in reality she's going too fast for anyone to really see any more than a blur," Diablo laughed. "The spell's only supposed to kick in when she's hyper. Otherwise it just wouldn't be fair to anyone trying to prank her, although I think she figured out how to make it kick in whenever she wants too because she moves inhumanly fast sometimes. That's why when we pull pranks on Snape we use her. She's never gotten caught. She once used a spell that washed his hair, bubbles and all, while he walked down the hallway. It was hilarious; she made him act as if he were in the shower and sing about caterpillars. Anytime a student looked at him funny or snickered, she made him snap that he actually did take showers but he preferred to look like a greasy git. Snape was so mad when he couldn't figure out who had done it," Diablo burst into a fit of laughter shortly followed by Sirius joining in. "Th.th' best part was. Keara got. She got PICTURES. an'. an' posted them. i'. Hogsmeade! Snape refused to go into Hogsmeade for the rest of the year!"  
  
"I remember doing that. Slytherin got one hundred points taken away for it because Snape thought only the Slytherins were smart enough to pull it off," Keara grinned as she plopped down on Sirius' lap clearly not as hyper as she had been before, but still in a cheerful mood.  
  
"You're a fruitcake. Has anyone ever told you that?"  
  
"No one other than you about a bazillion times already."  
  
"So then you're still in denial about it?"  
  
"I can't be in denial about something that doesn't have at least some basis in fact to begin with. Does it look like I'm made of dried fruit and some other inedible substance and do I resemble a brick?"  
  
"I think she looks very edible so she can't be a fruitcake whatever that is," Sirius grinned as Keara blushed.  
  
"It's a Muggle thing," Diablo explained.  
  
"See? So therefore I can't be a fruitcake. I'm definitely no Muggle, not that I have any problems with them, but I'm still not one of them," she grinned knowing that she had won that argument. She decided not to read too much into Sirius' comment. He was probably just teasing anyway and did that kind of thing with every girl.  
  
"Humph. You're still a fruitcake," Diablo glared as Keara just rolled her eyes while she looked at Sirius clearly implying that she felt sympathy for Diablo. Sirius laughed and gave a smug smile over the top of Keara's head at Devlynn who was glaring at him. Sirius knew that Dev wouldn't do anything in front of Keara because it might embarrass her or piss her off. He respected that. Now all he had to do was stay around her, so that Dev didn't have a chance to get to him. He wasn't all too sure of what Devlynn was capable of yet.  
  
~ * ~  
  
There were a few things Keara loved about the Muggle world. One being her electric guitar upon which she had placed a charm so that she wouldn't need electricity, but could still get the same desired effect. Another was a great source of entertainment on unsuspecting brothers and friends. Dev gave a yell when the first cool contact of the silly string hit him in the side of the face. He then conjured up his own can and officially started the Silly Sting War when everyone looked down to find their own cans laying in their hands. It took Ron a little longer than everyone else to figure out how to work them, but he joined in full heartedly after he had it all figured out and learned not to point the side with the hole at his face. It had been a nasty shock when instead of it shooting at Hermione, it had hit him in the face the first time. The war lasted long into the night and sometime between three and four they headed off to bed leaving the mess to be dealt with in the morning being too exhausted to deal with it then.  
  
Keara shared the smaller bedroom that night with Ginny, Lily and Hermione since there were fewer girls than boys. Diablo, Devlynn, Zeta, Psi, James, Remus, Sirius, Harry and Ron shared the larger one that night.  
  
The gang trudged down to breakfast the next morning arriving well after everyone else had, but not caring. They sat down silently and ate. They were still tired from the previous night.  
  
"I'm gonna head to the library for a little while. I'll be back later when your classes are done," Keara got up to leave after she had finished eating.  
  
"I'll come with you."  
  
"If you want to, Sirius. I'm not very interesting while I'm reading."  
  
"That's alright. I'll still come," Sirius didn't miss the look that Dev gave Diablo telling him to tag along and watch the two of them.  
  
"I'll come, too," Diablo said hastily. "At least for a little while before class starts. I have to finish some homework for it anyway."  
  
"Uh, okay," Keara shot a suspicious glance at Dev who only shrugged and told her to have fun. The three left the room and headed off in the direction of the library.  
  
"Dev wanted you to come didn't he?" Keara asked after a few minutes. Diablo wisely chose not to respond. "Honestly, I don't know why he doesn't trust me to be anywhere within fifty feet of Sirius. He wouldn't hurt me. Would you, Paddy?" Keara smiled brightly up at Sirius.  
  
"Wouldn't dream of it, Tryst," Sirius smiled back down at her. She was a good number of inches shorter than he was. He wondered if he'd get away with using that particular nickname. He assumed it was okay when she only smiled more at him.  
  
"See? I told you, Diablo. He's harmless." Diablo made an unintelligent sound. He knew Dev would not be happy with how close Sirius was getting. Keara didn't even let him call her Tryst and he'd been like a brother to her since he was five.  
  
"I wouldn't say I'm harmless, but I'd never intentionally hurt you," Sirius corrected, taking her hand and kissing it.  
  
"Aw, you're more of a knight in shining armor than Sir Cadogan. Last time I saw him he wanted to fight me," She grinned. "And well last time I checked his armor was still grass stained from falling off of his fat pony. Not at all shiny," she giggled.  
  
"You really need to change your look, Keara. You know that?" Diablo interrupted them before they had a chance to make him feel any sicker than he was already beginning to feel.  
  
"Why?" Keara was already sounding bored with the conversation as if she'd had it numerous times in the past, which she had.  
  
"Because it's boring." 'Thank god it worked,' Diablo thought.  
  
"How is it boring?"  
  
"Because you're always in black and then an occasional red when you dress up which isn't often."  
  
"There's something wrong with that?"  
  
"Yes. You look exactly the same every day. Your hair is always up the same way and you're always in black. Aren't I right Sirius?"  
  
"Actually, yesterday it was in a messy bun and today it's in a ponytail. Yesterday she wore a turtleneck and shorts and today she's wearing a tee shirt and pants," Sirius grinned at Diablo knowing that he wouldn't be happy to hear that he didn't agree. "She's also got a silver ball chain necklace along with another silver necklace that has two turquoise stones in it, so she's not entirely in black."  
  
"Whose side are you on?!" Diablo looked outraged. Sirius was supposed to support him not her. Guys were supposed to stick together.  
  
"Hers," Sirius grinned and pointed at Keara. "I think she looks great."  
  
"Aww, thank you," Keara stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek.  
  
"I still say you need a new look," Diablo just didn't know how to give up before he got too far behind.  
  
"And what do you suggest I wear then?" Keara looked slightly put off and irritated with him.  
  
"Why don't you try wearing a lamp shade?" Diablo suggested 'helpfully.'  
  
"And what may I ask is that?" she knew perfectly well what one was. One of her best friends back in the states was a Muggle, but she had a feeling Diablo didn't know what one was.  
  
"It's a Muggle thing," Diablo shrugged.  
  
"Why is everything a Muggle thing with you? You're a pureblood!"  
  
"Uh."  
  
"Do you even know what a lampshade is?"  
  
"Uh, well it's a. Um and it's.uh." Diablo stuttered trying to think of what it could actually be. "It uh, gives shade to lamps. so they uh. don't get too hot."  
  
"In other words no you don't know."  
  
"No. Not really," Diablo blushed then glared at Sirius who had started sniggering.  
  
"I think you've been spending too much time in Muggle Studies. Last I knew, you've never even seen half of the Muggle stuff you talk about," Keara grinned as Diablo stalked off. "You know what one is?"  
  
"Nope. Not a clue. Can't be too important though," Sirius shrugged.  
  
"Guess not, but you'd think he'd learn to leave my wardrobe alone by now. He's been nagging at me about it for years and it hasn't gotten him anywhere. We did get rid of the babysitter though," Keara grinned.  
  
"'Bout time, too."  
  
"Wanna explore a bit instead of going to the library?"  
  
"Sure, why not? Maybe we'll find some more passages and rooms that we can put on the Map."  
  
"We might. You never know. Race you!" and with that, Keara took off running.  
  
"To where?!" Sirius took off after her.  
  
"The dungeons! Last one there has to say they love Snape!"  
  
They were careful not to run into any other students or teachers. They were running too fast for any of the teachers to recognize who it was that was wreaking terror on the poor first years who were afraid of being ran over on their way to class.  
  
Once they got there, Sirius asked, "So now. now what do we do?" He was out of breath. They had been running for the past fifteen minutes and had both reached the dungeons at the exact same time.  
  
"Well, we both have to say it," Keara stated as if it were obvious. "On the count of three. One. Two. THREE!"  
  
"They love Snape." Each said at the same time.  
  
"Hey!" They yelled together and both burst out laughing.  
  
"You didn't think I'd catch that loop hole did you?" Sirius laughed accusingly.  
  
"Of course I didn't," Keara grinned. "I thought you might be too tired to think of it. Dev wouldn't have. He trusts me too much sometimes. Not that I'm complaining about that."  
  
"I'm not Dev and I wouldn't be a Marauder if I didn't catch things like that."  
  
"Good point."  
  
"You'd make a good Marauder yourself."  
  
"You really think so?"  
  
"Of course I do."  
  
"Thank you. I think that's one of the highest compliments that I've ever received."  
  
"It should be," Sirius leaned down and kissed her nose which made her giggle. He took her hand. "Come on. Let's explore." Sirius was glad that he still had the Map in his pocket from when James had given it to him days before. That way he could add to the map as they went along. The dungeons hadn't been one of the places they had worked on exploring yet, so he guessed that he and Keara would find a lot to add. 


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9  
  
Keara had conjured herself up a sweater to keep her warm in the colder temperature of the damp hallways and Sirius had insisted that she borrow his cloak as well when she started shivering even with the sweater. Sirius wasn't sure how long he and Keara had been wandering around, but they had added thirteen new passages and twenty-seven new rooms to the Map. One of the rooms, the one they were in at the moment, he assumed had to have been the one Filch always talked about; the one where they used to hang students from the ceiling or some other form of torture for detentions. That room had given Keara the willies as well as fascinated her. Another room seemed to be a storage room for potion ingredients, next to that one seemed to be Snape's quarters, which they decided to leave alone for now and explore later. He knew they must have been exploring for hours, but if anyone had asked he would have said it felt like mere minutes. They never realized that they had missed lunch. Nor did they realize that they had made the rest suspicious when they couldn't be found in the library and Madame Pince had said that they had never showed up.  
  
"We should probably head back now. They'll start to worry about us soon," Keara whispered not really wanting to end her time alone with Sirius.  
  
"Yeah, you're probably right," he agreed, but made no move to leave.  
  
"Sirius?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"The door's over there."  
  
"I know."  
  
"We should probably head that way."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Yeah," Keara smiled shyly. She really didn't have much experience with guys, but she was normally careful not to let anyone know that.  
  
Sirius leaned down, kissed her gently, and smiled. "Good thing we got rid of the babysitter."  
  
"Very good thing," she smiled back, kissed him and walked out the door. Sirius had no choice but to follow her.  
  
~ * ~  
  
"Where the hell is she?!" Dev was fuming. Keara hadn't turned up at lunch and neither had Sirius and dinner was supposed to start soon.  
  
"Calm down, Dev," Diablo put his hand on Dev's shoulder only to have the shoulder be jerked away. "I'm sure she's okay. Sirius isn't out to hurt her."  
  
"Oh, sure. He may not mean to hurt her but he will! She said that she was going to the Library. WELL, GUESS WHAT!! I was JUST there! Madame Pince said they were never there! I thought I told you to go with them!"  
  
"I did."  
  
"Then why did they never get to the library?" Dev growled.  
  
"Because I left before they got there. Keara got on my nerves. I'm not her babysitter and I'm not your slave. I don't have to put up with her," Diablo retaliated and only managed to anger Dev further.  
  
"I'm sure they'll turn up. They don't need a babysitter. Nor does your older sister need to tell you where she is every waking moment and who she's with. You are not her father," Zeta gave Dev a look that told him to act rationally or he'd make him.  
  
"Sirius is my best friend, Dev. Use that as some consolation." James walked away praying that this behavior was out of character for the boy. Sirius sure knew the best ways to cause trouble. Unfortunately, James didn't think this trouble was a good thing. They needed to hurry up with this prank before Sirius got carried away and destroyed everything between Dev and Keara. They wanted to cause trouble, but that hadn't intended to tear people apart.  
  
"I'm going to have a talk with her when she gets back," Dev muttered bitterly to himself.  
  
"I'll see you at dinner, Dev. Hopefully you'll be in a better mood by then," Diablo took off after James and the rest of the gang and went down to the Great Hall to eat.  
  
Dev followed a little later on still in a foul mood.  
  
No one other than the eleven Gryffindor students seemed to notice the absence of Keara and Sirius. Everyone, however, noticed their sudden appearance in the Great Hall. It was hard to miss two teenagers running into the room and towards the Gryffindor table while the first one was shrieking because the second one was attempting to tickle her. They were half an hour late, but neither seemed to care, nor did they care about all the curious looks sent their way from the other students. Keara sat next to Devlynn giving him a loud kiss on the cheek as was her customary greeting for him and smiled. Sirius took his seat on her other side. Both were laughing uncontrollably about something Sirius had just told Keara.  
  
"Did you know that Strider once got himself stuck in his own toy chest?" Keara grinned around at the gang. "He was stuck in it for two hours before his Mom finally found him." Sirius buried his face in his hands and groaned.  
  
"So how come you never told us that story?" James smirked. "Going soft are we?"  
  
"No," Sirius muttered. His face had turned bright red. "You aren't going to tell them everything else I told you are you?" Sirius glanced sideways at Keara.  
  
"Of course not Pookie," she gave him a heart-melting smile. "That'd be cruel."  
  
"Don't call me Pookie again," Sirius threatened while smiling knowing that it was hollow.  
  
"Don't ever threaten her," Dev glared not caring that Sirius' threat was hollow.  
  
"Drop it Dev," Keara said quietly. She had stopped smiling. "You're acting like a prick."  
  
Dev stared as he watched her walk out of the Great Hall without having eaten.  
  
"Nice going, Dev, trying to starve her as well as make her miserable?" Zeta muttered.  
  
Dev hadn't heard him. He was too busy glaring at Sirius. "This is all your fault."  
  
"How is it my fault? She was smiling while she was with me! You're the one who set her off," Sirius glared back.  
  
"Everything was fine until you showed up at the castle." If looks could kill both Sirius and Devlynn would both have been dead and more than six feet under.  
  
"Well, I'm not much wanted here. I think I'm gonna go down to the kitchens, get some food, and find Keara. She needs to eat," Sirius got up and left.  
  
"Devlynn?" Lily asked cautiously.  
  
"Hmm?" Dev was still staring at the doorway to the Great Hall.  
  
"Does your sister hate Snape?"  
  
"Yes," Dev answered absentmindedly. "'The bloody ugly git' as she calls him."  
  
"Does she hate Malfoy?" Lily tried again.  
  
"Yes, what does that have to do with anything?" Dev gave up watching the door and turned his full attention onto the conversation.  
  
"Did she hate Fudge?" Harry asked, cottoning on to what Lily was doing.  
  
"No she loves fudge actually," Dev looked confused.  
  
"No you idiot! Not fudge as in the chocolate. Fudge as in the person!" Zeta snapped completely fed up with Dev's behavior over the past few days.  
  
"Oh," Dev blushed. "Well yeah, she hated that he was a 'blind ignoramus' and nearly got everyone killed by insisting that Voldemort hadn't returned. And seriously. What does this have to do with anything? Or do I even want to know?" Dev began to get a feeling of dread. He didn't think he wanted to know where this conversation was going.  
  
"Did she hate Lockhart?" Ron asked also catching on after catching Harry's look.  
  
"Yes. She'd be an eejit not to. He was an airhead! Completely brainless! Dumbledore should have known."  
  
"Then she seems to be a good judge of character," Lily concluded.  
  
"Errr." Dev growled, suddenly understanding that he'd just been set up.  
  
"Just try to get to know him. You might just like him. Or at least pretend to get along with him. That is if you don't want to lose your sister," James advised. "She likes him and you, yourself just proved her to be a good judge."  
  
"Yeah, things could be worse. Keara could like Malfoy," Diablo put in helping the cause. He didn't like to see his best friend going ballistic over dumb reasons especially since he was normally the most level headed. He would have expected Zeta to act that way, but never Dev.  
  
"Ech! I don't even want to think about that possibility," Dev looked completely disgusted. "I just ate." Everyone laughed and finally Dev began to join in as well. 


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10  
  
"Keara? You in here?" Sirius attempted to look around the pitch black girls' room.  
  
"Mmpf," came her muffled voice from the far end of the room. It sounded as if she had her face buried in her pillow.  
  
"I'll take that as a yes," Sirius stepped into the room trying his best to get used to the light enough to make out where she was.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Apparently she had removed her face from the pillow.  
  
"I brought you dinner," Sirius indicated the basket at his side. He knew that she would be able to see the motion because of the backlighting from the doorway.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I thought that would be obvious. We missed lunch and you didn't stay to eat dinner," Sirius closed the door behind him.  
  
"Mm."  
  
"I'm turning on the lights. I can't see where you are," Sirius juggled the basket around as he fumbled for his wand to light the torches.  
  
"On my bed."  
  
Sirius turned on the lights. "Wow, this room is small. Ours is huge!" He saw her shake her head and give him a small smile.  
  
"Well you have to fit more than twice the number of people in there. I could have stuck you all in here and taken the large room for us girls," Keara sat up and leaned against the wall at the head of her bed propped against her many pillows. Sirius took a seat in front of her and placed the food in between them.  
  
"Good point. I'm not gonna complain about the room. Dig in," Sirius helped himself to a plate of food.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"No problem," Sirius took a bite of his chicken. "This is excellent," he grinned mimicking something that Dumbledore would say.  
  
"I'm sure you think all food is excellent that's cooked here or by James' Mum," Keara grinned, teasing him.  
  
"I thought you were American," Sirius looked confused.  
  
"I am but, what does that have to do with anything?" now it was Keara's time to be confused.  
  
"Well you called James' Mum, Mum. I thought Americans said Mom."  
  
"They do. I used to as well until we moved to England. I still refer to my own mother as Mom because I never had a chance to call her Mum. But I'm so used to everyone else calling their mothers, Mum that I call them Mum as well. If that makes any sense to you."  
  
"Perfect sense. Do you mind my asking what happened to your Mom?" Sirius purposely used Keara's term for her mother.  
  
"She was killed when Dev and I were younger in a car crash by a drunk driver. That's why we moved to Britain. Daddy wanted to be closer to his parents," Keara whispered sadly. "I still miss her."  
  
"I would too if I lost my Mum. I'd never stop missing her."  
  
"Thank you for not killing Dev as well," clearly indicating that further conversation about her mother was closed for discussion. Sirius wasn't surprised that she had changed the topic. She obviously didn't like to be unhappy.  
  
"How do you know I didn't?"  
  
"If you had, you wouldn't be up here talking to me. It would be just plain tacky to come up here with me if you had just murdered my little brother."  
  
"Ah, well I guess you're welcome for that. Although sometimes I wouldn't mind killing him."  
  
"I know he's giving you a hard time. I've never seen him act this way before. I thinks he's a tad bit jealous that he doesn't have my undivided attention all the time now."  
  
"Hopefully he'll get over it. He needs to learn to share."  
  
"He had better get over it and I quite agree. He does need to learn to share. HEY! Wait a sec. I'm not a piece of property."  
  
"I know that. If you had been born a couple hundred years earlier, though you would have been."  
  
"As long as you know that."  
  
"Eat. I'm not leaving until you do," Sirius said with a mock stern voice reminding her suspiciously of her father when she had been little and hadn't wanted to finish her veggies. It made her smile, which she assumed was what he was going for because he grinned when he saw it.  
  
Sirius walked out of the girls' bedroom a few hours later followed by Keara who was carrying the dirty dishes and muttering something like 'women's work my arse' obviously commenting about Sirius' lack of assistance with the dishes. Keara said something along the lines of 'be right back' and walked out of the room with the dinner dishes. A few snickered at her misfortune and went back to their conversations.  
  
"You were one of the champions in the tri-wizard tournament? You would have been too young."  
  
"Technically."  
  
"Technically?" James raised an eyebrow wondering what his son meant by that and just what it was that he was trying to hide or at least not tell him about. Getting information out of his son was like pulling teeth sometimes. He just didn't want to give it.  
  
"Yeah," Harry attempted to just avoid the answers that his dad wanted, hoping to put off upsetting him as long as possible.  
  
"Care to explain a bit more?" He just wasn't going to drop it this time. James had a feeling that this was about what Devlynn had interrupted Harry from having to tell him the day before in the hall.  
  
"No. Not really."  
  
"Tell me, Harry."  
  
"I'd really rather not."  
  
"I'm your dad. I have a right to know."  
  
"Yes, you do have a right, but I'd still rather not tell you," Harry looked down at his hands as he fiddled with them, not wanting to meet his father's eyes. He didn't want to upset his dad with recounts of all of his near death experiences and there were many.  
  
"If I wasn't the same age as you, you probably wouldn't be so impertinent," James muttered.  
  
"Probably not, but that would mean you were most likely still alive, and then I probably wouldn't have anything to hide from you," Harry shrugged. "You would have already known about it."  
  
"True," he conceded to that point. "Just tell me."  
  
"Promise you won't flip?"  
  
"No," James started to think he didn't want to know anymore.  
  
"Then I won't tell you," Harry said simply.  
  
"Fine, Fine. I promise," James lied.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes knowing that it was a lie and decided to tell him anyway and get it over with. "Well a death eater pretended to be Mad-Eye Moody and taught at the school in my fourth year. He taught my class about the three Unforgivable curses and tried placing the Imperius curse on all of us to see if we could fight it. The Curse doesn't work very well on me. I'm able to fight it. He put my name in the goblet so that I could win the tournament and bring Voldemort back to life. Voldemort tried to put me under the Imperius curse as well, but I fought it, Dad. Then he tried to kill me."  
  
"WHAT?! Did Sirius know?!" James had shot forward in his chair and was almost falling out of it.  
  
"Yes, of course he did," Harry snapped irritably.  
  
"He LET you compete?!"  
  
"No one gave him much of a choice, not that Sirius could really do anything about it. He was still a convict then. Everyone still thought that he was guilty," Harry answered. "And you said you wouldn't flip," he muttered.  
  
"Why didn't Sirius come and get you? And I kept my promise. I didn't flip, you did not see me somersaulting through the air. I got upset. There's a difference."  
  
Harry gave a snort but continued, "He didn't come get me because he still hadn't had his trial yet and it didn't look like he would for a few years. Which he didn't. It was better for me to stay at school than go into hiding with Sirius."  
  
"Why didn't you just stay with the Dursleys!? The Dursleys are better than someone trying to kill you!"  
  
"No, Dad, they weren't. That was also part of the point. I could no longer stay with the Dursleys. I was going to be staying with the Weasley's during that summer holiday. You can't honestly believe that I would have been safer outside of Hogwart's."  
  
"Well, I suppose that's true. Wait. Are you trying to tell me that the Dursleys, they." James looked like he was about to be sick.  
  
"Yes, they did. It was a while ago, so don't worry about it." 


	12. Chapter 11

A/N: Sorry it's so short. Can't really say much about it, but I apologize for taking so long to update. School's kept me busy and I got a major writer's block for this.  
Chapter 11  
  
"Hey, Sirius. Can we talk since Keara isn't here?" Devlynn walked over to him.  
  
"He's not after your blood anymore," Diablo grinned at the worried look that Sirius had sent his way.  
  
"Positive?" Sirius didn't trust being alone with Devlynn. Who knew what the boy would do to him.  
  
"Not really," Diablo laughed as he saw Sirius visibly gulp. "Seriously, I think you should be fine. We ganged up on him at dinner and he's decided that you're better than Malfoy."  
  
"That's good to know. Ah. Uh, I guess we can talk then," Sirius followed Devlynn into the empty boys' sleeping quarters. Sirius sat on his bed and waited for Dev to say what he wanted.  
  
Devlynn decided to just jump right in and get it over with, "I guess I'm all right with you and Keara. I mean, at least you aren't Malfoy or any other Slytherin for that matter so she could have chosen worse as everyone decided to point out to me at dinner after you two left. But. If you ever hurt her I will come after your blood and I won't stop till I get it."  
  
"Are you a vampire then?" Sirius smirked and they both started laughing. He couldn't help making the joke. It helped to ease the tension he felt. "Honestly though. I will try my best not to hurt Keara. We'll work something out for when I go back because I know I have to. Well I think I do. Actually I might be able to stay here. It could make everything safer for James and Lily," Sirius grinned as he worked out a plan in his head. "I could still be the secret keeper, but Voldemort would never be able to find me here. Maybe I won't go back."  
  
"I really don't care what you do just don't hurt my sister while you do it."  
  
"I know. I won't. Truce?" Sirius held out his hand.  
  
"Truce," Devlynn agreed, shook the offered hand and smiled.  
  
"Good," Sirius grinned and flung a pillow at Devlynn's head and ran out of the room with another pillow yelling, "PILLOW FIGHT!"  
  
All hell broke loose with those two simple words. 


End file.
